Failed a professional certification test. I am bumming. (long)

I have been sort-of working on a professional certification for the last few years (it’s not from my employer, but an independent agency); it has 4 tested parts. I finally scheduled the last tested part and took it on saturday, and failed, like 64% failed.

I didn’t feel great about the test the whole time I was taking it, and after ( I had to wait a few days for results), so this was not totally unexpected, but I had studied a ton over the last few months.

Some things that I’m trying to wrap my head around-I’m trying to determine where I went wrong, without blaming anyone else.

it is computer-proctored, which is super wierd.

I initially tried to take the test on friday, but couldn’t. I had to get their tech support involved, which I worked with for an hour and a half; the computer I had been using to access the study material didn’t work-the testing site is actually completely different from the study site, and there are firewall settings that need to be shut off for the test to work. That precluded me form using my work computer and prevents me from doing it at work.

we also discovered the site couldn’t use a chromebook, so I had to go to computer #3, (who TF has 3 different laptops that all work in their immediate grasp?) then, change the microphone and camera settings. at that point, I had to give up, because my kids were coming home, and they’re noisy, plus, I was so fried from zoom calling with the company’s IT department, who were totally out of their depth on this.

I tried again saturday, and almost immediately regretted the decision. The site has on on-board calculator, and it doesn’t work with a keyboard, so you have to mouse click every number, and the calculator buttons are tiny. Part of this test is 4 step calculations, which I have always done on excel, partly because of the difficulty of calculating correlating ratios. it also covers up the original question, because it’s a scientific calculator, so 60% of it is useless.

I cannot use two monitors on this.

in the middle of this, my kids came home, though I asked my wife to keep them out of the house, so at some point, they are yelling and jumping up and down on the ceiling on top of me. I am on camera, and am not allowed to leave my computer for any reason during the test, so I am desperately praying at some point that they will stop.

I have been working in my field for 17 years, and I can do everything on the test, but under these conditions, it’s incredibly difficult, evidenced by my abysmal performance.

I have to re-take the test, and I am trying to figure out a no-fail strategy. I am even considering renting an office with internet for a month or 2, and buying a new laptop, which will be a few grand on top of the 600 I have to pay to retake the exam.

I have not failed any test, or really, at any task in a long time, including getting my MBA while working more than full time and raising an infant, so this feels like a kick in the nuts.

One of the things I am trying to do is to get the organization to give me exact answers on the conditions under which I can take the test-I have asked a number of times for guidance on if I can have scrap paper, but they don’t answer directly, so now I feel like I have to push to make the conditions work for me, instead of letting them dictate the conditions for the exam. This could be just pissing into the wind, though.

Any thoughts are appreciated.